The team’s colors and badge are probably the first things that spring to mind when you think about a sports team. These elements represent the team’s identity and values while providing a bond with its fans. Selecting and creating a team’s colors and badge involves careful considerations, including cultural significance and psychological impact. You may say that making the team’s colors and crest is akin to producing a piece of art, with the designers wanting to create something unique and noticeable yet remains instantly identifiable and resonates with people of all ages and experiences.
Why Team Colors and Badges Matter
Team colors and badges are essential to get right because they are a sports team’s most visible and recognizable aspects. A team’s color scheme is instantly identifiable and is deeply associated with the team’s history and legacy. For example, the Chicago Bulls’ iconic red and white or the Los Angeles Lakers’ purple and gold. As a sports fan, you see these colors and instantly know the team and its past successes.
The colors and badges often reflect its fan base’s cultural or regional identity. Soccer giant Manchester United famously wears red to represent the red rose of Lancashire, the British county where the team is based. The NBA’s Boston Celtics’ green and white colors symbolize the franchise’s Irish heritage, while the burnt orange of the University of Texas Longhorns is a nod to the state’s rich cattle ranching tradition. These seemingly innocuous color choices create a more profound sense of belonging for a team’s supporters.
Colors can also have a psychological impact on the team and its opponents. Darker colors like black or navy blue are associated with intimidation and power, while red is commonly used to signify energy and passion. Fans are passionate about their team’s colors and will often avoid a rival’s color scheme in their everyday lives, as you will learn soon!
The Thought Process Behind Creating Colors and a Badge
Most established sports teams had their colors and badges chosen decades ago, but they are sometimes altered to make them more modern. Furthermore, new teams like Inter Miami FC of Major League Soccer are founded, requiring colors and badges created from scratch.
Understanding the team’s core values is the first step in creating its colors and badge. A team that prides itself on resilience may choose bold colors and a badge design that reflects determination and strength.
Designers must also research cultural and historical contexts. Historic symbols, local colors, and artistic motifs can be incorporated into the badge and color scheme to help create a sense of continuity and tradition.
Balancing tradition with modernity poses a significant challenge for designers. Tradition is important, but so is appealing to modern sensibilities. Designers do this by refreshing the color palette or modernizing an old emblem. The badge and color scheme should honor the team’s history while looking forward to its future.
Why Teams Rarely Overhaul Their Badges and Colors
Sports teams rarely make significant changes to their colors or badges once established, despite the importance of staying relevant. Colors and badges are deeply tied to a team’s history and its associated memories. Such elements are sacred to fans because they represent years of emotional investment and loyalty. Substantial changes risk alienating the fan base, which is why few teams drastically overhaul badges and colors.
In 2012, Welsh soccer team Cardiff City hit the headlines for the wrong reasons when its Thai owner, Vincent Tan, ordered a new look. Cardiff City’s nickname is “The Bluebirds,” and the team has played in an all-blue kit since 1908. In addition, the club badge featured a prominent bluebird. Tan thought it was a good idea to make Cardiff City play in an all-red kit with the badge changed to a Welsh dragon, similar to the Welsh national team.
Fans went ballistic at the changes because they stripped the club of its identity. They refused to purchase replica jerseys and protested outside the team’s stadium on matchdays. Tan bowed to fan pressure, and Cardiff City reverted to playing in blue two years later.
More recently, in July 2024, the British soccer team Leeds United unveiled a new home shirt emblazoned with the famous Red Bull Bulls logo and with substantial red sections. Leeds United traditionally wears all-white, a nod to the white rose of Yorkshire. Additionally, Manchester United is Leeds’ fiercest rival, and they wear red. Large sections of the loyal Leeds United fan base refuse to purchase the home strip, and having red on the home shirts has caused a significant stir among the older generation of the team’s supporters.
However, teams do make changes to badges and colors; take the Miami Dolphinsas a shining example. They have made several changes over the years but have been subtle and considered evolutionary rather than revolutionary. These subtle alterations have helped preserve the core elements that fans associate with the team.
Conclusion
It should be evident that a sports team’s colors and badges embody the team’s identity, history, and aspirations. To the uninitiated, they are just colors and a logo, but to a team’s supporters, they are much more than that. They represent loyalty, legacy, and tradition. They represent everything the team stands for and everything its fans believe in.
Crafting these key elements is a complex task. Designers require a deep understanding of the team’s value and a connection to cultural and regional contexts. When designers get these things right, a team’s colors and badges become a powerful source of pride and unity. However, get them wrong, and fans become alienated and feel disassociated with the team they deeply cherish; here’s looking at you, Cardiff City.
The next time you see someone wearing a replica jersey or a scarf in a famous team’s colors, look into what the colors and symbols mean. You may discover some fascinating facts that you were previously unaware of.
